A new regional airline was launched in Poland earlier this week - Direct Fly, www.directfly.pl. The airline will begin flying before Easter using several Saab 340A aircraft flying on various domestic routes and routes to Germany, Denmark and the Ukraine. This will not be a low fares airlines but a full service airline catering mainly for business travellers.

Direct Fly plans to fill an empty niche in the Polish air travel market. Until now, LOT (or rather LOT's subsidiary euroLOT) has had a monopoly on domestic air travel and all routes have radiated from Warsaw. Anyone wishing to travel from Wroclaw to Gdansk, for example, would only have the option of flying via Warsaw and then transferring on to a flight to Gdansk. Direct Fly will now offer a direct connection from Wroclaw to Gdansk and similarly from Krakow to Gdansk amongst other domestic routes. If the routes are successful there is talk of linking other Polish cities and introducing other connections such as Poznan-Krakow.

Personally, I am dubious about Direct Fly's plans. According to some sources, the only profitable domestic route for LOT is Warsaw-Wroclaw and there isn't much demand for any other routes so we will have to wait and see how things turn out.

Too bad they won't be flying to SZY (Szymany, roughly 50km away from the provincial capital of Olsztyn) or any other airport in northeastern Poland. True, it's the poorest region, but it is an area for vacationers from Poland and Germany (Mazurian Lake Region). I have family around there, and when I travel there, it would be nice not to have to take the drive to and from Warsaw. Polish roads and drivers scare the hell out of me.

Another Polish airline eh? I am thinking that there wont be any more new airlines flying domestically in Poland unless one of the current ones goes under. Like stated above, I also like the colors on the Saab.

Will you watch the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions on Sunday? Only if coach Eric Mangini resigned after a loss.

Quoting Mke717spotter (Reply 4):Another Polish airline eh? I am thinking that there wont be any more new airlines flying domestically in Poland unless one of the current ones goes under. Like stated above, I also like the colors on the Saab.

They say on their webpage that they are using very modern Saab 340A aircraft. Wow, if they think that A version is modern then good luck to them.
Even Shuttle America gave all their A version Saabs to Colgan

Quoting Boeing4ever (Reply 10):Whatever happened to Air Polonia...or that other airline that was to start up with some 320s?

Air Polonia operates 737s and L410s IIRC.

Air Polonia died a death some time ago. The airline was under-financed and just ran out of money. The start-up you might be referring to was supposed to be called Get Jet I think but that airline never even got off the ground.

Unless I am very much mistaken, I am sure that I read somewhere that Air Polonia was reincarnated and now trades as a small cargo operation under the name of Sky Express. Sky Express is in fact the parent company of Direct Fly so this may explain the choice of orange and grey livery. When Air Polonia went bust, they must have left behind a few tins of grey and orange paint!

Quoting Boeing4ever (Reply 16):hmmmm, makes for one interesting hodgepodge. I wonder how Wizz and Fischer will fair against EasyJet and Ryanair.

Fischer Air doesn't have a great deal to fear from the likes of easyJet, Ryanair or Wizz Air. It's a charter airline flying to different destinations, mainly Mediterranean ones and surprisingly a few more exotic long haul spots such as Sri Lanka, Thailand and Kenya to name but a few from their website.

As for Direct Fly, I believe we may now have a photo of their first Saab 340 waiting to be painted: